How To Shoot Your Age

Shooting, or better still beating, your age is a rare featthat needs celebrating. We hear from one of Britain's mostprolific 'age-shooters', Colin Rogers, about how it’s done

- Michael Weston

To shoot your age or better is something many of us won’t contemplate just yet, certainly if you’ve yet to start collecting your pension. However, when you find yourself reflecting on your golf career in later life – perhaps when you’ve been playing senior opens for 20 odd years – then this feat might just come onto your radar. That said, you'll need a razor-sharp golf game.

Colin Rogers is an ‘age shooter’; he’s matched or beaten his age every year since turning 73 – and on numerous occasions. There was a two-year period in his early 70s when he missed out, but normal service was resumed thereafter. When we speak, he’s already come in under his age once for the season, albeit “just off the yellows.”

However, it wasn’t until he started playing golf in his mid-20s that he discovered he had a talent, and he certainly didn’t imagine he’d still be playing the game over 50 years later, locked in a regular personal battle to beat his age.

The start of something special

“I began playing properly when I came out of the RAF in 1962 at the age of 25,” says Colin. “I started off with a handicap of 15 and joined the club where I am now, Henbury in Bristol. I got quite keen when I got my handicap to 9. At that point I remember thinking, ‘Crikey, it’s really difficult to play to 9’.”